Resources

Places To Go

Support, Self-help and Network Group

The ABI’s own support group! This is a free support group for anyone touched by adoption. The group is facilitated by a registered social work with a strong background in supporting parents of all types. Drop ins welcome

FSCD provides information, referrals, and funding for family support services and child-focused services to families of children with disabilities. Disabilities may be developmental, physical, sensory, mental, or neurological; it must be a chronic disability to be eligible. There is an application process for families seeking funding.

The Government of Alberta has put together links to all Kinship, Foster, and Adoptive agencies recruiting parents in the province. This is a great resources for potential adoptive or foster parents to start their application process.

The Alberta Aids to Daily Living (AADL) program helps Albertans with a long-term disability, chronic illness or terminal illness to maintain their independence by providing financial assistance to buy medical equipment and supplies, such as mobility devices (e.g., walkers, wheelchairs) or hearing aids.

Books To Read

Lois Melina, the mother of two children by adoption, draws on the latest research in psychology, sociology, and medicine to guide parents through all stages of their child’s development. Melina addresses the pressing adoption issues of today, such as open adoption, international adoption, and transracial adoption, and answers parents’ most frequently asked questions.

The voices of adopted children are poignant, questioning. And they tell a familiar story of loss, fear, and hope. This extraordinary book, written by a woman who was adopted herself, gives voice to children’s unspoken concerns, and shows adoptive parents how to free their kids from feelings of fear, abandonment, and shame.

Adoption is not for the faint of heart. Labours of Love chronicles the journeys of Canadians who have overcome heartbreaking obstacles to become parents. Their stories are as diverse as our country, and span the borders of our world. While each account is unique in its own way, the stories are connected by the overwhelmingly commonality of the power of human connection.

When Michael Dorris, 26, single, working on his doctorate, and part Indian himself, applied to adopt an Indian child, his request was speedily granted. He knew that his new three-year-old son, Adam, was badly developmentally disabled; but he believed in the power of nurture and love. This is the heartrending story, full of compassion and rage, of how his son grew up mentally retarded, a victim of Fetal Alcohol Syndrome whom no amount of love could make whole.

This quick-start resource will help prospective parents consider key emotional and spiritual issues up front…before they plunge into the near-overwhelming mass of details and start to run into roadblocks, even dead ends. Laura Christianson—an adoption educator and mentor, and an adoptive mom herself—brings her experience and knowledge to address unspoken but crucial questions.

The objective of this guidebook is to give you medically accurate, fair and balanced answers to your questions. People living with FASD often experience intense differences in the way they think, learn, and manage themselves. Looking at the world from their perspective may give you the clarity you are looking for. Hopefully, with this information, you will discover whether you may be the right family for a child or teen living with Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder.

In a kid-friendly, accessible way, this book explores the ways that people can choose to come together to make a family. It’s about sharing your home and sharing your heart to make a family that belongs together.

Being away from one’s parent can create feelings of insecurity for any young child. But even when they are apart, parents and children can share a special connection. Told from the parent’s point of view, In My Heart shows that, no matter where the parent is—or where the child is—the child is always in the parent’s heart.

DVDs To Watch

This Canadian documentary series was featured on the CBC’s Passionate Eye. It consists of three very different stories of adoptees searching for their roots in their biological families. Jeannette Loakman finds her biological mother, and shares her struggles as she adapts to a life with two mothers. David is a teenager with Tourettes syndrome and Bi-polar disorder, who travels to South Korea to seek his biological family, hoping to ease his pain. Brenda Kovrig’s story is both funny and painful, a coming of age tale and a detective story, as she searches for the true meaning of family after meeting her birth mother.

Conceiving Family follows (Director/Producer) Amy Bohigian and her partner, Jane Byers, as they adopt biracial 15 month-old twins, Franny and Theo. Combining personal interviews, intimate footage, and family photos, Conceiving Family tells the collective story of what it takes to become an intentional family.

From the Adoptive Families Association of BC: This unscripted documentary details the lives of six B.C. teens who have lived in foster care. As part of the AFABC Speak-Out Youth Group, these teens took a journey to explore their ideas, feelings and thoughts about adoption, foster care, and family.

Academy Award winner for Best Documentary, this is the story of a family with 19 children—14 of whom were adopted with severe disabilities. John Korty’s documentary shows us that this remarkable family and not only how they function each day but how they meet the many challenges posed by their particular situations.

Did You Know?
Only 2% of adopted adults search for their biological parents.